Who he is
A babalawo in charge of the treatise
Ricco Ledesma is a babalawo of the Lukumí tradition. He has more than seventeen years in Ifá and is Awo Orunmila; his sign is Osa Kuleya. He has godchildren and teaches other believers.
Ricco Ledesma is his pen name. What counts here is the published word, and he answers for it.
Why this site exists
So the word is understood and not lost
La Palabra de Ifá was made to explain the paths of each sign in more detail than you usually find, and to put them in order so that any believer can take reliable information from them. These are its reasons:
- So it is not lost.The notebooks (libretas) of the houses are kept locked away, get lost, or go with the person who had them. What is written here no longer depends on one person.
- To put order in what is scattered.What goes around is incomplete, badly copied or contradicts itself, and it is almost never explained. Here each sign has its page, with everything in the same order.
- So no one takes advantage of those who do not know.With the sign in front of you, it is harder for someone to scare you with what it does not say, or to sell you what it does not ask for.
- For those who are starting.The paths, the proverbs and the eewó are explained in clear words, so beginners understand what they read and do not only repeat it.
- For the babalawo in the consultation and in the itá.In seconds you find the prayer, the ebbó by purpose and the patakí behind each iré and each osogbo.
- To know how to behave.Each Odù teaches what to take care of, what to avoid and how to behave. That advice is here, in order, so believers keep it present in their lives.
- For those who do not speak Spanish.The whole treatise is also in English, for the believers of the diaspora.
How it was checked
Compared and reviewed, not copied
The content was compared with lineage notebooks and with published treatises of Ifá, and other babalawos review it. Corrections from readers are accepted with a source —a treatise, a book, a page or a lineage—, not by opinion.
The rules of the house are public: patakíes complete and never merged, variants marked apart, one spelling.
His work here
He gathers the sources and edits every page
He gathered and put in order the corpus of the 256 Odù: prayers, proverbs, eewó, ebbós, works and the 5,338 patakíes. He is the editor of that content in both languages of the site.
He does this work as editor at PINNCOR, the company that publishes La Palabra de Ifá and its app.
What he does not do
No readings here
Being a babalawo does not turn this site into a consultation room. Ricco Ledesma does not give readings, consultations or predictions through La Palabra de Ifá: the treatise is a study library. An Ifá consultation is done in person, with your babalawo.
Write to him
Corrections reach him
A correction, a source, a patakí you know in another way: write to contacto@lapalabradeifa.com. He reads that mail. Every Odù page has a link at the bottom to send a correction with the name of the sign already filled in.
· The book goes on
Where next?
The word has someone to keep it.